New Thrill: “Pellicano Prosecution Park”

My pal at the Daily Journal legal paper, columnist Garry Abrams, conjures up a scenario where he’s leaked to. “The other day an anonymous source approached me on the street and handed me a bulky manila envelope [containing] an audiocassette and a sheaf of papers, many bearing rough sketches of what appeared to be weird carnival rides. I popped the cassette into a player and listened to what seemed to be a radio commercial: …’We at the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles have got something exciting and different! It’s a thrilling playground based on the law! It’s a wondrous realm where truth and consequences are real! If you don’t behave in our domain, you could go to jail! But if you follow the rules and pay the admission, oh, what a fine time you’ll have at the wonderful, exciting Pellicano Prosecution Park!'”

Continued Abrams: “Riders of the Century City Collapse would be required to put on coats and ties before being escorted to what appeared to be a coveted, expensively decorated corner office on a floor high enough to provide a view of the Pacific Ocean. Once installed behind a desk, riders would be told to amuse themselves by dictating threatening letters, reviewing drafts of possible lawsuits, calling celebrity clients and partaking of the firm’s six-course, three-martini catered lunch. There, the nauseous and possibly drunk riders would learn that they had been indicted for allegedly using Pellicano to illegally wiretap a movie star’s divorce lawyer. The riders would then be offered two choices. Give up others who had used Pellicano, and do it even if you never met Pellicano, are not a lawyer and you’re 12 years old. The other option? Be held without bail in a windowless, secure housing unit cell for ‘as long as it takes.’ Who wouldn’t pay money for that?”